Ancients: Grading ancient coins

Before digital, Frank would take a Polaroid of any lots you wanted and charged a dollar or so for as many as would fit on a shot. In general, it was not worth the money because his words were better. Now I find myself being talked out of bidding by more of his photos than I do being coerced into it.

If you started photographing your coins (one at a time) now, how old would you be when you finished? Scary?

 

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One at a time? Which coins? If "just" ancient, and only better ancients, (so not counting Chinese, even knives, spades, or other early Chinese), its probably 4-5 thousand or so. "Best" ancients probably 500-600 hundred, (coins that cost $100 or more). Digging through my crud recently, (still looking for that one for you Doug), its kind of surprising/depressing how much can accumulate. I found a group lot of course I don't remember buying of about 80 large Byzantines, including some types I have never seen. So, yeah, I guess taking pics of all of this would take a while. I do have my den done, so I do now have an official "coin spot". I actually have been considering taking a video of me pulling out some of this stuff, and going through it. I find it fun to do this occasionally since I never remember what I have bought, so its kind of like buying it all over again.

Regarding Frank, I tend to almost ignore his pics. I have never had an overgraded coin from him, so I trust his written description. I hate to recommend him so highly since I just placed about $1800 worth of bids in his upcoming auction, but he is a nice man and a fair dealer, so deserves to have more customers.

 

stevex6' grading school ($82 dollars, sign-up and diploma fees)

=> pass / fail

pass => wow!! (awesome ... yah, that baby rocks!!)

fail => wow!! (that's just like Bing's coin!!)


... just jokes, brother

 

It could be worse. You could name the grades after whose collection the coin would best fit. A 'TIF+' would be a bit short of an 'about AJ' but head and shoulders over a Doug. The sad part is many of us would understand the system.

 

You may be onto something with that grading system. It could be like a regional dialect.

I hope to acquire some "aAJ" coins in the upcoming round of auctions. Actually, I have acquired a couple of "ex AJ" coins.

 

Pass/fail is pretty much how I size them up, although the standards are changing as time goes by and some former students would flunk out today.